


Personal/Outer Space

by ficfacfoe



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 13:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4667456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficfacfoe/pseuds/ficfacfoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secrets. Lies. Manipulation.<br/>She doesn’t like this whole situation.<br/>Abigail Griffin is a woman of science, a doctor, who has sworn to be honest and honourable. Who never liked sneaking around.<br/>And yet…<br/>And yet.<br/>Here she is.<br/>Here they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal/Outer Space

Secrets. Lies. Manipulation.

She doesn’t like this whole situation.

Abigail Griffin is a woman of science, a doctor, who has sworn to be honest and honourable. Who never liked sneaking around.

And yet…

And yet.

Here she is.

Here they are.

She’s pacing. And being glared at. She holds up a hand, apologetically, and tries to stand still. She can’t.

Abby remembers, vaguely, how it all started. How the thought had first crossed her mind. The moment she had met a young mechanic, smart and strong and intriguing. Raven, a woman, brave, or maybe silly enough, to call out the chancellor’s name in a crowded hallway of the Ark. The girl had simply stopped her, had asked what the hell was going on.

Out of pure curiosity.

Out of love, of course.

Abby has to remind herself that that’s the reason, the main reason all this has happened. For love.

Because Raven loves her boyfriend, worries about him, wants to make sure he’s alright.

Abby remembers the pained expression that had crossed the girl’s face, asking, less demandingly, “Can you… tell me if he’s okay?”

And she’d wanted to, she’d immediately wanted to tell the truth, wanted to tell this girl everything, because Abby doesn’t lie, doesn’t like lying, but all she had said was “I can’t, I’m sorry.”

Not lying.

Not telling the truth either.

She really, really couldn’t tell a random mechanic about the currently biggest secret on this entire spaceship, just because she’d seen a glint in brown eyes that made Abby’s cheeks feel a bit warm. Because she was intrigued, she told herself. Raven was intriguing. And that was it.

“No you’re not,” Raven had muttered, half under her breath. And Abby’s eyes narrowed, automatically, at how raw this woman seemed. How Raven was speaking with such honestly, such a childish lack of a filter. But was it really childish at all?

“First the dropship, now this…” Raven had started again, shaking her head, “the council’s hiding something,” she spoke, determinedly, “and I’m gonna find out what it is.”

 Raven had walked away after that, leaving Abby and her assistant standing in the middle of the hallway, and he’d commented, “Ballsy kid,” a hint of appreciation in his voice.

“Yeah.”

One side of Abby’s mouth curled up into a smile, her eyes seemingly lost in a memory. “Reminds me of someone,” she’d whispered, trying to fight the urge to run after the girl and tell her the truth. She hadn’t met such a courageous person in a long, long time.

That had been the start. That had been the moment Abby first thought that maybe, maybe she’d found someone who could help her, someone she could trust enough for the task she had in mind.

And now…

Here they are.

Here they are.

“I’m going with you,” Raven had stated, immediately after hearing the plan. And Abby hadn’t known what to say, not straight away, but it didn’t seem like a bad idea. Not because she’d get to spend more time with Raven. No. It just made sense. It felt right. And that was that.

They were a good team, Abby thought, so why not go together. It felt right. Together. So she had agreed.

And then, everything had spiralled out of control.

Out of control.

Now.

Everything’s out of control, now.

And Raven sighs, asks, for the third time, “Abby, will you please, please stop the pacing? Please?”

Her voice is soft, understanding, and stirs something inside Abby’s stomach that she still tries to squash down.

“I can’t,” she admits, “it’s too late, this…” She runs a shaky hand through her hair. “This is all happening too fast. We can't… this is not gonna work. It’s not… oh god, this isn’t working."  

Raven stands, wiping oily hands on her legs.

"Okay Abby, slow down, come on.”

She puts her greasy hands on either of Abby’s shoulders, forcing eye contact, and Abby doesn’t mind, neither the motor oil on her shirt nor the flutter in her stomach. She doesn’t mind anymore. And Raven says, “You need to tell me. What’s happening, Abby?”

So she tells her, tells her about how Kane is on his way right now, how they are all found out.

When the words leave her lips and the look on Raven’s face changes into a harsh, pained expression, tears brimming in dark eyes, she can’t hold back any longer. Can’t deny that this is not just about getting to the ground.

This is about more.

This is about her.

How can this be about her? She doesn’t even know Raven.

And yet this feeling in her stomach is, unmistakably, about Raven. Abby cares, so much. Maybe more than cares, she thinks, maybe that’s not the right word, but it has to be. It has to be.

“I’m not going without you,” Raven mutters between gritted teeth, standing closer to Abby. They look at each other, both women’s faces displaying much more of this something that neither of them are able to put into words.

And it hurts.

Saying goodbye hurts, far too much. Not because Abby is facing execution, not because she isn’t going to finally get to her daughter, get to the ground. It hurts because Raven is crying now, holding onto the back of Abby’s shirt when they hug, clutching at the woman’s head with the palm of a strong hand. Probably getting motor oil everywhere.

“I’m gonna make it,” she whispers right into Abby’s ear, voice wavering, lips almost touching skin. “I promise, I’m gonna find them, I’m gonna find her for you and tell her-" 

Raven stops talking when a sob escapes Abby’s throat. "Thank you,” she chokes out, squeezing her a bit more tightly for a moment.

She leans back to look the other woman in the eyes, mouthing, “Thank you, Raven,” once more. And so much more she wants to say. Her chest feels tight.

She doesn’t think she can let go of the girl’s waist, can’t make her arms move away, because there is still so much to say, but she has to leave, she has to make sure that at least Raven is safe. She has to make sure she’s safe.

“I have to go,” she states, clearing her throat to get her voice back, failing miserably. She takes a deep breath. “Goodbye, Raven.”

And Raven stares, for the longest moment, as if she’s gonna say something else, as if she wasn’t ready to let go either, but then she nods sharply, once, and turns away. Half. Raven stills for a second when the hand that had rested around Abby’s back moves across the woman’s hip, where fingers brush Abby’s wrist, briefly, and then move down to her hand, quickly squeezing at slim digits. Still half turned away, Raven doesn’t lift her head, just stares at the ground. It feels intimate and meaningful, but before Abby can get used to the light weight, the soft warmth of Raven’s hand in her own, the woman has pulled away completely, jumping back into the pod.

Everything is spinning, time moving too fast. Abby wants to reach out, wants Raven’s hand back in her own. Just ten more seconds of intimacy, maybe.

And Abby’s hand is left feeling ten different shades of alive, and Abby’s heart jumps ten wobbly times against a heaving ribcage. And then she leaves.

And then she’s gone.

The memory doesn’t leave her mind on her way out, nor on her way past Marcus, past the council, on her way to almost being floated.

Her throat clenches at the thought of all the things she wants to say to Raven but never had a chance to. And it feels out of place, it feels odd that she’s thinking about this girl she barely knows, barely knew, when her whole world is falling apart. But the thought of Raven’s hand in hers is the most prominent thing on Abby’s mind as she faces imminent death.

And then she doesn’t.

And then she’s safe.

The rules have changed.

Everything is changing.

And Raven has survived, too.

When she hears the mechanic’s voice, mixed with mechanical screeching and cracking of the barely-there connection, Abby can feel tears brimming in her eyes.

There are tears in her eyes and a tumbling heart in her chest and butterflies on the palm of her hand, and she’s never in her life even seen a real butterfly, let alone touched, but she knows how it feels in that moment.

Raven is alive, and okay, and Abby is so, so confused but happy, so happy. So relieved.

Raven is on earth, and she is up in space.

But they’re alive.

And Abby’s palm feels like a million tiny butterflies are batting their wings against it.

 

_

 

The air, the earth, the water.

Things are different, on the ground.

Everything smells different, and feels different, and looks different.

Sunsets are different.

When Raven sees her first sunset it’s so many different shades of red and blue and purple that she doesn’t even know where to look, doesn’t know where to let her wide-opened eyes rest first. But despite the beautiful colours, despite all of it, she can’t help searching out that one brightly shining dot, slowly but steadily orbiting earth.

And Raven wonders what it was that had made her see more colours in the golden specks of sparkling brown eyes.

When Abby gets to the ground, things have already spiralled out of control. And Raven is surprised she’s still alive to see the doctor’s face, scared and hopeful and sweaty and familiar. And her voice is soft and gentle, and so hopeful that it breaks Raven’s heart. Because Clarke isn’t there. Because she is hurt, and she is helpless. She can’t help Abby, is what hurts most.

Raven almost misses the way Abby doesn’t react the way she’d expect her to when she tells her about her daughter’s absence. Almost misses how Abby just stares at the blood on Raven’s shirt, the blood on the dropship’s floor. But Raven doesn’t miss it, Raven sees the worried focus in deep brown eyes, and blames it on instinct, because Abby’s a doctor. Abby has to care about people’s health like that. Nothing personal. Just her job.

It feels personal though, when she has to yell at Abby to make her remove the bullet, when Abby strokes back sweaty hair from Raven’s face and holds on to her hand when nobody’s looking. And she remembers the moment before she’d jumped into the dropship. Remembers how Abby’s grip had tightened as Raven was pulling away, how the touch had lingered a little too long. Never long enough.

She doesn’t hate Abby. Not even after everything that happens in the camp. She never hates her. She tries. And then she tries to trust, instead.

And it’s easy.

Surprisingly, unfamiliarly easy. 

She’d never been the person to trust someone quickly. 

But Abby’s voice is genuine when she tells her that they have to, that they need to be able to at least each other, and after the two seconds it takes Raven to say “I’m trying,” she’s already done, she’s already there.

Maybe she’d been there the whole time.

“I trust you,” she says the next day, out of the blue, sitting down across from Abby who’s eating lunch. Abby looks up for two seconds, deep dark eyes fixing on Raven’s, and her lips twist into a smile.

She’s chewing again, and looking away, but Raven hears her mumble quietly, with as little emotion as possible, “I trust you too, Raven.”

Her chest feels light. Much lighter than it has in days.

“Good,” she grins, and Abby’s eyes snap up again, as if she only now realised that she’d said out loud what she’d just said, or maybe she had thought Raven had already left again. Abby’s expression suggests that she’s surprised at herself, and it makes Raven chuckle, and lightly kick at the woman’s foot under the table. Abby gasps, and pokes Raven’s hand with her fork.

Raven grins.

And blearily registers herself thinking: What the fuck is happening?


End file.
